Downton Abbey Preview: A Dozen Things We Already Know About Season Four

Encouraging news: overseas journalists were treated to a preview of Downton Abbey’s Season Four premiere in London and seemed to genuinely enjoy the episode. The Telegraph gave the episode a five-star review, reassuring viewers that Season Four “really does seem to have turned the clock back: this new series much more closely—and welcomely—resembles that glorious first season, which made itself instantly the most popular TV drama in Britain back in 2010.” In celebration of the upbeat prognoses, we’ve scoured reports from the show’s recent press events in both London and L.A. to compile the upcoming Downton plot and character details that we can already count on.

(Note: If you don’t care for expository spoilers, which delightfully set the stage for but do not completely tip the hand of the new season, allow Carson to show you out of this blog post.)

1. The first episode will be set in 1922, six month after Matthew’s sudden death.

The audience is tipped off when the Dowager Countess (Maggie Smith) is told that “a grave takes six months to settle before a headstone can be placed over it.” Morbid! Making the premiere more bittersweet, The Telegraphnotes that part of the episode is set on Valentine’s Day.

2. The season will kick off with a gossip-worthy late-night excursion.

According to The Guardian, Season Four will “begin with the midnight flit of one of the main characters. The servants are seen scurrying to and fro, gossiping about the sudden departure as the kitchen buzzes to the sound of a new-fangled electric food mixer: the unstoppable force of progress making itself felt despite the Crawley family’s continuing troubles.”

3. Although the family remains clad in its black mourning bests, the Dowager Countess’s inimitable wit will thankfully still be in place.

“[T]he impeccable timing of Smith’s verbal smackdowns continues to buoy proceedings with moment after moment of sublime comic satisfaction,” *The Guardian*says of the first episode.

4. Still grieving Matthew, Lady Mary will have a very postpartum-depression-sounding relationship with her son, Baby George.

“It’s hard to bond with the baby,” Michelle Dockery, who plays Mary, explained to entertainment reporters in Los Angeles last week. “She looks at him and she sees Matthew. It’s a slow process, I think, with motherhood for Mary. The aristocracy didn’t really see their kids very much. So there’s a nanny, and, eventually a governess looking after baby George. . . . You don’t see much interaction between the baby and Mary.”

5. Master George will be played by identical blue-eyed twins, who have already posed for their first Daily Mail photo shoot—in infant suits!

According to the accompanying Daily Mail piece, Logan and Cole Weston will play the U.K.’s second most popular George this season. On set, they apparently shared their own trailer with the name “Baby George” pinned on the side and indulged in Haribo-sweets feedings at seven a.m. on set.

6. Lady Mary and her widower brother-in-law, Tom Branson, will not, as Internet users squeamishly speculated, become romantically involved this season—at least if Michelle Dockery has any say in the matter.

“They are very much friends and he is her brother-in-law, still. I think they become close because of what they’ve both been through,” Dockery said in L.A. “And also, Mary becomes far more involved in the running of the estate with Tom, so we do have a lot of scenes together. But romantically, I don’t think it’s going anywhere. . . . It’s very inappropriate.”

7. That being said, Lady Mary does entertain one suitor with a Downton history.

Speaking of Lord Gillingham—a new character played by Tom Cullen—Dockery explained, “He is an old family friend who [Mary has] known since the girls were children and they haven’t seen him since she was tiny. . . . [She is] kind of slowly throughout the series coming back to real life and of course it’s important for her to eventually move on, so he is a potential love interest.”

8. The intentions of Jack Ross—the show’s first African-American character—will remain a mystery.

Producers only revealed that the jazz singer, played by Gary Carr, will provide modern and historically accurate flourishes to the season—reflecting the trend of jazz singers’ touring through Paris and London at the time. Considering that we already know Edith will be spending a fair amount of time in London, perhaps it is her character who interacts with Jack the most.

9. Dame Kiri Te Kanawa will appear as Australian soprano Dame Nellie Melba in the third episode of the season.

While the rest of the house holes up in mourning, producers revealed that Edith will spend a fair amount of time in London with her editor/boss, Michael Gregson. And according to Laura Carmichael, who plays Edith, the middle Crawley really finds her inner Carrie Bradshaw this season.

12. Disappointingly, Mrs. Hughes and Carson will not be hooking up.

“No. No,” said Mrs. Hughes actress Phyllis Logan, in response to the suggestion by a reporter in L.A. “We still have a very nice working relationship. We still have occasional spats here and there. We still have a lot of respect for one another. We occasionally get to drink a glass of sherry together . . . not as often as I would like.”

The fourth season ofDownton Abbey premieres stateside on January 5, 2014, after airing in the U.K. this fall.